Sports Betting

THE HISTORY OF SPORTS BETTING

There is no one point in history to pinpoint as the start of sports betting. Humans have been betting on the outcome of sporting events for thousands of years. People have always loved to throw all their support behind a team and hope that it makes a difference.

Over the years, horse racing has become one of the most popular forms of sports wagering. It still remains so today.

Sports betting centers have opened all across the world, allowing players to make bets at a physical location. Nowadays, most gamblers prefer to place their wagers online. Online wagering is surging in popularity.

Legality of Sports Betting

The issue of whether betting is legal in the USA has been a difficult one. Thankfully, it has gotten a lot simpler in 2026. At the end of 2017, the Supreme Court heard a case from New Jersey to overturn the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992, commonly known as PASPA. This piece of federal legislation prevented states from legalizing sports wagering, even if the state wished to do so.

While PASPA didn’t make it illegal for citizens to place wagers at off-shore sports books, states were prevented from permitting them. This made things more difficult, as the off-shore betting websites couldn’t be properly regulated. Only a handful of states were exempt from PASPA, including Nevada, Delaware, and Montana, because these states already had some form of legalized wagering by the time PASPA became law. Out of those states, only Nevada offered full betting to residents and visitors.

However, New Jersey was able to get the Supreme Court to hear its case and several months after the hearing, PASPA was overturned. This doesn’t mean sports wagering is legal in your state, it simply means that there is no longer a federal ban and states can decide for themselves if they want to allow it.

Since PASPA was overturned, numerous states have legalized wagering operations and numerous other states are planning to do so in the future. It is thought that, within the next few years, the betting market could become the largest regulated market in the world.

Different Types of Sports Betting

There is a wide range of different types of sports wagering available for players to enjoy. People bet on almost every conceivable kind of sport,  with online gambling sites offering wagering on most sports.

FOOTBALL BETTING

Football, known as American Football to the rest of the world, is massive but not so much in the rest of the world. These Football bets can be made in any of the three big leagues, including the NFL, NCAA, and the CFL.

• Super Bowl: This is one of the most popular football players can wager on who they think will be the Superbowl winner. Wagers made at the start of a season will often have better odds for a player.
• Heisman Trophy: The Heisman Trophy is the most coveted award in the NCAA. Players can wager on who they think will be awarded the trophy.

Basketball Betting

Basketball is another one of America’s favorite sports to play and wager on. It is second only to Football in terms of overall popularity in the ‘States’. Gamblers have plenty of options when it comes to betting on a basketball match, and it’s enjoyable and simple.

• NBA – The NBA is the professional level of Basketball. There are plenty of teams that play regular matches, culminating in a final tournament between the top 16 teams from the East and West conferences, eight from each.
• College – College basketball is incredible, with hundreds of teams playing countless games. not to mention March Madness, which sees a huge number of teams facing off in a single-elimination tournament. Last team standing wins! This is an incredibly popular event to wager on.

Baseball Wagering

Baseball is America’s pastime. From minor league to major league baseball, America will always love a day out at a baseball field.

Many American gamblers wager on baseball games. There are many different ways to wager on baseball. They include:

• Overs and Unders: An over/under wager is quite simple. A bookmaker will predict the total number of points a team is likely to score in a season. A player will then bet whether the true total will be over or under the bookie’s prediction.
• Winning team: A basic bet, used in every team sport in the world. A player can bet on the team they think will win, and what the home run margin between the two will be.
• Player bets: Gamblers can wager on how many home runs or strikeouts a player will have in a game or in a season.

Golf Betting

• Specific player bets: Golf bets can include bets made on a specific player’s performance in a tournament or a season.
• Tournaments: Players can bet on who will win each golfing tournament, and how many shots they will be ahead of their closest rival. Popular tournaments to bet on include the PGA Open, the PGA and LPGA Championships, and the Ryder Cup.
• Hole-in-Ones: The elusive hole-in-one is one of golf’s most coveted undertakings. A player can bet that a golfer will hit a hole-in-one during a certain tournament.

Tennis Betting

Tennis bets are usually made on who will win the men’s and women’s tournaments at the big championships. Some of the biggest tournaments include the French Open, the Australian Open, and Wimbledon.

There are many, many different ways in which American players can wager on sports. Nearly all sports games can be wagered on, though not all online gambling sites offer betting on every kind of sport.

Sports Betting – American, Fractions and Decimals

In other parts of the world, the odds on any sports bet will be displayed in one of two ways, either fraction or decimals. Fractions, which are the most common, are usually displayed as something like 4/1. Decimals will be written as 5.84, for example. The more likely a team is of winning, the less profit a player will make if they do.

Decimals

Decimals make it easier for the layman gambler to understand what their possible payout from a wager might be. So, if a player makes a $20 wager, and the odds are written in decimal as 1.29, their possible payout will be $25.8.

Decimal odds are written in a way that shows what the player will get for what they stake, eg. 29c for every $ they stake. This is why it is written as 1.29.

Fractionals

A bet with the same odds as the example used above in the would be written as 2/7. Fractionals are the more common way of writing the odds of a bet. Fractionals are written in a way that shows the profit a player will make, eg. $2 profit for every $7 they stake or simplified as $1 profit for every $3.50 they stake.

This handy table will make it much easier to understand.

Fractional Odds	Decimal Odds Equivalent
1/3	1.33
2/8	1.25
6/9	1.67
7/6	2.17

American Odds

However, here at home we have our own way of displaying the odds. In the USA, the odds will normally be displayed like this: -200 Team A, +300 Team B. In this case, Team A is the favorite. Essentially what these odds mean is that if you wanted to win $100 on Team A, you would need to bet $200.

However, a $100 bet on Team B would win you $300 if they win. While it might seem quite confusing, it really is very simple. The negative number, the favorite, is how much you need to bet to make $100 profit, while the positive number, for the underdog, is how much you would make if you made a $100 bet.

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